One of my favorites too.
I had an imaginary big brother named Xevious.
I did, from c. 3-4.
Possible precipitating event-my father, often stressed out from his 15 hours a day medical career, hit me one day (when I was about 3 yes).
Soon I had an imaginary friend. If my real name was actually “John”, then I would have called him (back then) “Johnny.” Now. I was a very bright and imaginative kid, with a vocabulary several years beyond my biological age-and I choose a name for my little friend which is just a simple boring variation on my own?
I would insist on a place at the meal table for him.
Then we got my sister, when was 4 1/2. One day Mom asked me where Johnny was, since she hadn’t seen me “playing” with him in awhile. I told her that, since I now have a sister, I had sent him away, to “Mars”…
Yes, he was named Fred and lived in a pink camp trailer. I don’t remeber much else.
I got a little sibling when I was only 19 months old, so the house was already too crowded to add imaginary friends…
When I was a kid, I was jealous of my sister, because she had an imaginary friend but I didn’t. Because of course Rocco, the 3-inch tall invisible deer who flew around in a little airplane and who only I could see, was real.
Many years later, I learned that my sister never actually had an imaginary friend; she just pretended to, because she was jealous of me.
John DiFool, I have no idea where I got the name “Rocco”, since it wasn’t like any name I’d encountered at that point, and most of my stuffed animals as a child have had horribly unimaginative names like “Kitty” and “Mousey” and the like. Of course, if you had asked me, I’d have said that I knew Rocco’s name because he told me.
I had an imaginary girlfriend. Shortly after we consummated the relationship, she ghosted me.
Yes. His name was Jesus. He lived everywhere and was purported to be some sort of omnipotent deity.
Then I turned 6 and stopped believing in fairy tales.
Mine too. :o Mr. Bear, Mr. Frog, and their companions were the closest I came to an imaginary friend. I would explain things to them and they would serve as a little audience for me to figure things out to.
I had two: Tommy and Susan. Then I started school and they went away. But my little brother had the mice, the snakes, the rats, and the rabbits. They lived in a rundown hotel not too far from the WinnDixie. My brother was a weird kid.
No. I grew up in a house of 7 people and 3 dogs. I didn’t have time for imaginary friends.
Mostly Disney characters- first from The Little Mermaid, then The Lion King and Pocahontas.
No.
I grew up on a farm. I had a dog and a dairy cow (holstein) My father would let me sit on her back when she was getting milked. I’m not sure why they ‘gave’ me a cow because I never got paid for her milk. I mean once you have a dog and a cow, who needs imaginary friends?
Nice. Did you ever read John Collier’s “Thus I refute Beelzy”? I think you’d like it.
I will give it a read. Thanks!
I don’t remember having any imaginary friends.
But my daughter, somewhere around two and a half years, told me that there’s a blue witch who lives behind the television. She still (at three) believes this.
I don’t know if this qualifies as an imaginary friend.
No, and neither did either one of my brothers, nor, to my knowledge, any of our cousins. From conversations about literary imaginary friends, the whole paternal side of the family was quite confused by the notion.
No, I never had an imaginary friend. Once though, halfway through 2nd grade, when I was living in the 8th house and 6th town, I felt a hand on my back just as I was on the verge of sleep (sleeping on my side) and woke up screaming bloody-murder that Satan had touched my back… Slept flat on my back for 6 years before I got over it and could sleep on my side again…
Of course not! I’m a sane, well-adjusted, no-crutches-needed adult!
But the invisible giant space hamster that likes hanging out with me seems to. In fact, he seems to think I’m imaginary. Fancy that!
One of my sons had “grandma” that sat on his bed at nap time and read him stories. Another had “grandpa” do it a few times. My daughter has aliens that live in the basement (George the spider) or in the attic (the access panel is in her bedroom.) George has since moved out.